100% Click Through Rate

I was thinking about how to drive CTR’s up via different mechanisms this morning when this email arrived in my inbox.

I remembered talking about high CTR email response rates with Dave McClure and Shervin Pishevar when we were in DC on our Startup Visa trip at the beginning of March. I’d forgotten about this conversation until this email showed up while I was thinking about this. Of course, I clicked to see where Dave had tagged me (it was on a Huffington Post article about innovation.)

I thought about it for a few more seconds and realized that to date I have a 100% CTR on an email from Facebook that says “<X> tagged you on Facebook.” I can’t come up with anything else that I have a 100% CTR on, but I’m now looking out for it.

Do you have any examples of transaction emails like this you receive that have 100% (or even 50%+) CTRs?

Interesting post and I might first say that in order to be able to click, the email must be physically delivered to the inbox! While a 100% CTR is insanely good, companies most often quote inaccurate email metrics by not factoring in the physical deliverability of their messages. So if a campaign goes out to 1 million people and half of them open the message, than that's a 50% Open Rate. But of the 1 million emails that are sent – if only 750,000 physically make it to the inbox of the end-user, than the effective Opens Rates, CTRs, etc are actually much higher. Not on a tangent here, but thought I'd toss it out there!

Best,

Dave at Return Path

http://www.facebook.com/shanemacspage Shane Mac

I would have to say I probably have a 100% click through on these as well. It has a few elements to it that I think are why I always click on them.

First is the instant connection to someone that you know, trust, and relate to. This is just human psyche.

Second is the word tagged. When nowadays they are using tag for many things besides just photos it still has the "I am in a photo" feeling to it and that alone would get me to click on it. Like it or not, I think most of us would go look at a picture of themselves to see what/how they look. (Me, I usually find out how much of a mess I look like but its all good.)

Third is the fact that they draw action without telling me what to do… The simple line "To view or comment on the post, follow the link below:" has a really clever way of telling me I need to join the conversation because someone I know is talking directly to me. It inspires action and not requires action and with that…. I click.

Going to start thinking on this simple content a little more for the Gist emails right now.

Thanks Brad and great post.

-Shane Mac
Marketing Manager at Gist.com

http://www.pegshot.com Christian

No question these generate a huge CTR, but can these emails be related to "transaction emails" though? My team has been working on what we are calling "cross-network tagging" functions for some time now as a means to drive traffic. But, the idea of a 50% transactional rate from an email (vs click through) sounds off the charts.

Maybe we could create a very large database of extremely scary phrases to insert into the links and put a pay wall between the user and the pictures/videos.

"[insert facebook friend] as tagged you in a photo entitled [insert tagged person's name + goes nuts in the strip club]" ?

I would say that emails from Google Alerts (on my own name or brands) have a pretty high click through rate for me. It must be upwards of 70% because I want to know what people are saying about me or the brands I represent. This is similar to the "tagged" emails as they are doing the same thing to your image on Facebook.

Cheers,
Jesse

http://www.fakepad.com freddie

That is assuming people actually read those emails. I guess there are plenty of people on Facebook who turn of all email notifications.

http://www.ironhelmet.com Jay Kyburz

check out the mystery box at the top of the email. They tell you what post you were tagged in, only that you were tagged.

Lucas

Hence the success of spam site – "Tagged.com".

It seems that they have created an entire business around using the viral nature of this one statement "Your Friend <friend> Tagged You"… "Sign up to see the details…" to drive hordes of traffic.

http://www.facebook.com/scodtt Scott Yates

Now I have a new life goal: Write something so boring on Facebook that even though it has a tag of your name you won't want to click it. Hmmm, I better study a few high commissions from the UN.

http://www.facebook.com/AlbertMaruggi Albert Maruggi

Well the issue there is from whom the email comes, not the content right? The same message appears in inbox every day, yada yada (someone you don't know) took this picture of you or tagged you in this photo.

So the issue is about credibility of messenger right not about the message necessarily. Therefore that supports a friends marketing channel which has its limitations.